Six great white sharks spotted near islands off Chatham

Six great white sharks have been spotted in the ocean near the remote Monomoy islands off Chatham.

All the sharks were spotted by George Breen, a pilot for Cape Cod Shark Hunters.

The area of Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge near where the sharks were spotted is usually only accessible by boat, after a newly formed inlet cut off foot access to many of the beaches, said Dave Brownlie, Monomoy refuge manager. No beaches at the refuge were closed due to the sightings.

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“We do not try to contact every visitor that might be on the beach after a shark sighting,” Brownlie said. “Everyone that is entering the wilderness is assuming personal liability and risk.”

There were two sightings of great white sharks off Chatham on Sunday and Monday, respectively. In both cases, the sharks were seen within a couple hundred yards of the beach. It wasn’t clear if they were the same shark. The sightings were the first confirmed sightings of the year.

Breen checked out the beaches by air from Chatham to Nauset Tuesday, and no other sharks were observed, according to a post on the Cape Cod Shark Hunters website.